Diary of a Troubled Eighth Grader
Diary of a Troubled Eighth Grader is the third and final book in the ''Zachary Brown'' trilogy. It was released on February 19, 2018. Synopsis Opening The book opens with Zachary Brown sitting in an office being yelled at by Principal Zambaux, which is then revealed in present time to be because he accidentally threw an empty bottle at him. After reflecting on how Ian Freeman accidentally destroyed his Revolutionary War outline, Brown sarcastically states that his life is impossibly enviable. During the past week, he has had a horrible case of bad luck, including bad grades, cavities, and being an easy target for humiliation. Later, having failed to turn in his outline, Mrs Clara assigns him to turn in another one. It is also revealed that Izzy is in his posse of friends. While he's working on his new outline, Zach notices his crush, Summer Petersen, lovingly cuddling his on-again, off-again enemy Steven Thompson, displaying their love in an obnoxious way in public. An envious Brown then makes a list of horrible pet names that he feels Thompson should be called. Copper appears and notices Brown. After being asked what he was working on, Brown lies quickly and says he was about to start a comic. Chad is also starring. Copper, who has a crush on Leven, asks Brown if she could be saved by him. Brown finishes the comic and is prompted by Copper to start thinking about life with superpowers. Introduction of the Zone of Athletes His band, Engage the Krosse, was subsequently asked to perform for the school to introduce the Zone of Athletes, a program introduced to enforce physical fitness. He and his bandmates took the challenge, but the tides turned when Thompson discovered Brown's list of insults and became so embarrassed that he deserted the group. Without a lead singer, ETK had to choose between Brown, Holme, (both have "natural disasters" for voices) and Freeman (not sufficiently skilled to sing and play at the same time). They chose on Brown, him having an edge over Holme. Shortly before the performance, Petersen approached Brown and asked him to speak with Thompson, as she still had no idea what was troubling him. She left for the bleachers wishing Brown good luck in his performance, which turned out to be a complete fiasco when Brown came down with nerves and forgot the lyrics, making ETK a laughingstock, especially teased by a student named Nolan. In the mix, Brown teases Summer Petersen over volunteering to observe a strand of her hair under a microscope, magnified four hundred times, but what he saw disgusted him to the point of trauma, awkwardly changing how he regarded Petersen. Holme and Freeman don't regard the situation with much sympathy and joke that they don't need a microscope to see stuff moving in Brown's hair. However, Brown's awful streak changes for him when he learned that Copper has found a good luck charm given to him by Petersen, though initially, he did not believe in it. He also apologized to Petersen for teasing her over the "microscope incident". Receiving the Hand of Luck Brown gained an enormous amount of good luck, turning the tables. He also began to warm up to the Zone of Athletes, if not slightly. Brown also began to accept that he had feelings for Izzy, and finally acknowledged, at least for the time being, that Petersen hated him (though comedically, he still had not forgotten how he'd felt seeing Petersen's hair magnified). The latter part was proven false when he returned the lucky hand to her, as he was very surprised to learn how nervous she was about asking Thompson if he planned on marrying her someday. He revealed that he had finally moved on from her. Once Brown returned home from school, he and Martha spoke of his grades, including an F in Social Studies. She explains how she was no model student either, and left Zachary with only a small punishment, forbidding him from drawing cartoons before bed anymore. That night, in an attempt to find a loophole around his mother's punishment, he drew a design on his shoes. Once the people at school discovered this, they began "Zaching" their shoes and Zaching shoes became a popular trend. When Brown began to gain popularity, people even started hitting themselves in the head with an empty soda bottle, just like Brown. As Brown became more popular, he excelled even Nolan in this field. Nolan did not appreciate how cool Brown was being. Eventually, he returned the Hand of Luck to Copper, deducing that he needed it again. Field Day However, when Mrs Clara noticed the hand, she immediately confiscated it from Petersen, leading to trouble during the event known as Field Day, as Brown had previously made a bet with Nolan. The bet stated that if the junior high won a single event, Nolan would be humiliated before the entire school, and if not, Brown would temporarily join Nolan's posse and dress like him. Brown refused to call off the bet without the Hand of Luck on him, as he considered the act dishonorable. Unfortunately, Grace Tyler became captain and she forced all the junior high students to do the events they were worst at. Brown was assigned to do hurdles, as his flexibility had always been a weakness. While he had a headstart when his opponent, Rhett, tripped, he tripped over the last hurdle. Disheartened, Brown was encouraged by Izzy, whom he had realized was one of his dearest friends, to think of something. He cleverly orchestrated a plan with Thompson to help his team win the event by setting up Copper and Leven, the latter's crush, to race. They also re-perform their song afterwards, and Copper and Petersen are featured in the performance this time. Brown graduates from junior high with a "reasonable" Grade Point Average. First Post-Script In a scene foreshadowing Before The SMSB: Who Will Hold Dominion?, Mr. Stupid NoHead relays Mr. Formidable NoHead with an assignment that has worldwide ramifications. Second Post-Script Zachary Brown and Izzy watch a movie about Greek Gods in silence due to their combined exhaustion. Izzy begins caressing Zachary's hair, he flinches before letting her do it. Rating Diary of a Troubled Eighth Grader is rated PG (parental guidance suggested). The book is rated "for mild language and innuendo". The book contains some middle-school humor language, including "toot," "butt," "dipface," and "turds." One teacher is nicknamed "Gas Station". A bully calls an overweight student "Superchunk." As for mild innuendo, some students have crushes on classmates, and a few are coupled up, but the romantic relationships are age-appropriate and handled well. The book also contains a brief reference to an awkward class on puberty, which is played for laughs. Behind the scenes Diary of a Troubled Eighth Grader is the only released book in Part Four: Truth Eternal to be PG, all the others have been rated PG-13. Z3